"Grandmother" by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou who wrote “Grandmother” is a novelist and poet and grew up in the south. She lived with her grandmother, who is named mother in the book, Uncle Willie, and brother Bailey. They faced many problems of racism and segregation throughout their lives. When her mother came upon a challenge she found out what type of person her grandmother. The grandmother is a very proud person that is concerned about her appearance and things around her. Grandmother is a neat freak.

While grandmother was on the porch, she wore a “wide white apron” that was stiff and had been ironed (6). She keeps her apron white and ironed everytime she uses it. By keeping her apron white all the time you can tell that she is a very clean person. Grandmother always likes for her yard to be clean, after Maya had swept the yard she made a pattern in the yard. Grandmother “was admiring the yard”. She always liked her yard clean and she was very proud of how her yard looked. Then grandmother “looked over toward the school principal’s house and to the right at Mr. McElroy’s”. She hoped that the “community pillars” would see how great her yard is before the day ends. She always wants her yard clean and she wants the important people to see her yard so that maybe they would keep their yard clean too.

Grandmother began to sing then she spotted the children. Maya was standing there and grandmother says “sister, go on inside”. She did not want her to see what was going to go on. While grandmother was still there the girls walked up “one of them wrapped her right arm in the crook of her left, pushed out her mouth and started to hum”. They thought that by doing this it would aggravate grandmother, but she tended to ignore them. She was still singing her same song ignoring what they were doing. The tallest girl that was a women made everyone move and she “bent down and put her hands flat on the ground, she then did a handstand, her dirty bare feet and long legs went straight for the sky and her dress came all the way down”.

Grandmother just kept singing but she changed her song. By grandmother not saying anything, she was just trying to be nice and keep things to herself. While grandmother was still singing the girls each say “Bye, Annie”. Grandmother politely says bye to everyone and puts Miz in front of every name. She definitely could of been rude to them, but she was polite and just told them bye. Throughout the story it had also been a competition between the whites and blacks, the whites were the powhitetrash and they thought that they were better than anyone. Grandmother ignored them and showed that they do not bother her. Grandmother was very victorious by not getting offended and she definitely handled the situation right by not letting it get out of control and being the bigger person. Maya went and raked the yard where the “smudged footprints were” and made a “new design”. “It was a large heart with lots of hearts growing smaller inside, and piering form the outside rim to the smallest heart was an arrow”. Grandmother was so proud of her and she enjoyed the yard and began to sing her hymn again.